Ducks must be road warriors

ANAHEIM – If you are the Ducks and you have won just three games away from home in 13 tries, how reasonable is it to believe you can suddenly become the kings of the road.

Reason might not matter at this point. The simple fact is the Ducks have to turn into road warriors if they want to climb back into the Western Conference playoff picture — and keep the current incarnation of this team intact.

The Ducks started a stretch where they play 10 of 12 games away from Honda Center with mixed results, but they arrived home Sunday feeling better about themselves after a 3-1 victory over Columbus on Saturday that snapped a nine-game road winless streak.

It is a quick stop to get refreshed as they continue their four-game trip Wednesday with games on back-to-back nights in Vancouver and San Jose. There is another back-to-back set next week in Colorado and Phoenix.

Given the Ducks are still positioned at the bottom of the West, the significance of those contests in the daunting schedule that's upcoming is magnified.

"You look at the schedule," forward Corey Perry said. "I think we play 20 road games in two months. There's a lot of emphasis on us being on the road and jelling together quickly. You've got to win on the road to be successful in this league."

The Ducks took a small step toward respectability on the road with the victory at Columbus on the strength of goals by Dan Sexton, Bobby Ryan and Corey Perry that supported a strong, 35-save effort in goal by Jonas Hiller.

It made up for letting two points get away in Detroit the previous night. They salvaged one point, but they blew a 2-0 lead in the third period, falling 3-2 in overtime when one-time Duck Todd Bertuzzi scored the tying and winning goals.

But the Ducks came away with a small sense of satisfaction.

"I thought these last two games, we played pretty good games," defenseman Scott Niedermayer said. "Pretty good road games and came up with three of four points. Now we're halfway through the trip and we've got a pit stop at home. Hopefully we can keep doing the same thing in the next couple of games."

Coach Randy Carlyle said there's no reason to be proud of their 3-5-5 road record to date but also noted that they haven't had too many chances to improve on that.

"Well we haven't played that many road games if you look at it comparatively," Carlyle said. "The problem is in five of them, we lost either in overtime or a shootout. That was five more points that we missed.

"You get upset that you only have three wins but yet we had five things that were available to us. So that's how close we were. That's what you try to build off."

Now the Ducks will be packing their bags for the rest of the month in search of victories. If they don't come, it's possible some players could be shipped out.

An increasing number of scouts have shown up at recent games in the anticipation that Ducks general manager Bob Murray will decide to shift the franchise into rebuilding mode. An obvious bargaining chip is Niedermayer, who's signed for just this season at $6 million though Murray has said he wants his captain to retire in Anaheim.

Veteran centers Saku Koivu and Todd Marchant could also be eyed by contenders that need help down the middle. Defensemen James Wisniewski and Nick Boynton are on one-year deals and could be targeted by teams looking to upgrade their blue line.

The Ducks would rather have a reason to hang on to their valuable pieces.

"You see some other teams around the league," said Bobby Ryan, whose name has come up in trade rumors because of his stalled contract negotiations with the team. "Some guys get moved, some coaches go. That's the business side of hockey.

"We've got a good group here. We've got good guys, good individuals and it's a good locker room. It's time to really address this and turn things around because it's a tough thing to see guys leave."

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